Hello,
I'm thinking of using free available code and work from there on to
cover needs of a web interface for a free and premium web mail
service. I would like to cover the below list of features and would
like to receive recommendations of free applications and tools out
there with source code to get me off.
Preference is for Perl, PHP and MySQL based components and modules on
the Linux OS:
1. Web mail interface with POP3 and IMAP abilities.
2. filters and forwarding configuration.
3. Admin area allowing account features and properties to be modified.
4. System maintenance and management modules.
5. Spam and relay protection via tracking, tracing and stamping of
headers with authentication strings.
6. Groupware Calendar features.
7. Spelling checker and a rich text editor that is compatible with
most browsers.
8. Contacts and Groups.
9. System performance and mail performance measurement and monitoring
software.
10. Advertisement management, something like or is PHPAdsNew.
11. Footer Management for end users and for service advertisement and
Quotes cycling.
I've been sniffing around sf.net and there seems to be enough there to
support the igniting of the above hoped for system with the right
development effort to stitch together a well selected and customize
them to create a portal out of. So the researcher will analyze the
open source projects, for example as mathtalk-ga expressed, and list
the ones which approximately meet the features listed above.
Thank you. :-)
/Lizardnation |
Request for Question Clarification by
mosquitohawk-ga
on
04 Apr 2003 17:21 PST
Take a look at Horde.org and look at their program called 'Imp' ...
let me know what you think.
|
Clarification of Question by
lizardnation-ga
on
04 Apr 2003 23:40 PST
Hello Mosquitohawk,
Thanks for referencing them, this is ideal!
I'm going through their site to understand the different components
and their features and the architecture of how they fit with each
other. I was wondering about the origins of the naming convention?
:-)
/Lizardnation
|
Hello again lizardnation,
I'm glad you found my clarification helpful. If it's okay with you,
I'll claim the answer and provide you with as much background about
Horde as I can, and you please followup with any additional
clarification requests you need prior to rating my answer.
IMP stands for Internet Messaging Program and formerly stood for IMAP
webMail Program. As for Horde, I don't really know what that stands
for. I'll email them and ask though.
Here's a more thorough answer for your numbered list, I will identify
each component of the Horde Project that would most suit that specific
need. All of the components require the Horde component, it is a sort
of 'shared' resource for all the other script packages. All
information comes directly from my personal knowledge and consulting
the official Horde Project website - http://www.horde.org/
1. IMP
2. IMP
3. Chora/Gollem
4. Chora/Gollem
5. IMP
6. Kronolith
7. IMP / not sure about RTF editing (maybe Mnemo)
8. Turba
9. Probably need a custom script or use Webalizer (check w/ your
webhost)
10. Another custom job. I'll check to see if it's already been done.
11. I assume you mean in IMP...custom job.
The custom job references mean you'll either need to pay a programmer
to do this for you, or find alternative scripts that have already been
designed and either purchase them if they're proprietary, or integrate
them if they're GPL.
I think you'll find that Horde is the best bet for what you need, even
though it doesn't contain everything, it does contain the majority,
and your other needs should be easy to integrate.
Best regards, let me know if I can assist any further, and I will post
clarifications if you request and when I find any other scripts that
may be useful to you.
~mosquitohawk-ga
Google Answers Researcher |
Request for Answer Clarification by
lizardnation-ga
on
06 Apr 2003 05:45 PDT
Hello Mosquitohawk,
I appreciate the answer till now. I'm assuming you've cross checked
the features I've listed and found them covered in the products you've
listed so I'm happy.
What I shall need more input on is the following:
Point #7 (The editor is important and would prefer a more solid answer
than a maybe to qualify that point)
Point #9 (Suggestion of a ready or almost ready script to integrate
which uses the same preferred language and DB as well as the OS).
Notes:
Point #10 & 11 (I've investigated PHPAdsNew and it does support banner
ads and text adds and I shall utilize for the banners and the footers
of messages in a custom job)
If you get around to finding out the meanings behind the names, that
would be a nice complement.
Thank you. :-)
/Lizardnation
|
Clarification of Answer by
mosquitohawk-ga
on
08 Apr 2003 08:34 PDT
Hi lizardnationa,
I just wanted to let you know I've contacted the developer's of Horde
and am awaiting their response regarding your clarification request. I
anticipate hearing something back today or first thing tomorrow, and
will post the clarification as soon as I do. Thanks for your
patience,
mosquitohawk-ga
|
Clarification of Answer by
mosquitohawk-ga
on
08 Apr 2003 13:17 PDT
Hello again, I have a few answers for your clarification request and
wanted to present them to you as soon as possible.
The names of the Horde components apparently are known only to the
developers and they're not telling. I'll reference the Horde FAQ
(http://horde.org/faq/admin/misc/index.php):
"6.6 Where did the names of the components come from?
We're not sure. Those that know aren't telling.
Seriously, many of the components have somewhat awkward acronyms as
their names, such as the Internet Messaging Program, or the Web-based
Horde Unified Project System. The maintainer of the FAQ has a
suspicion that others were pulled at random from an IKEA catalogue.
Besides, it's more fun to let you guess."
Point #7 Clarification
The editor that is included with the Horde Project, Mnemo nor the
webmail component, have the ability to format text using Rich-Text
format. However, there are many webmail programs that have implemented
this, the one I am most familiar with is UebiMiau
(http://www.uebimiau.org/). You may consider downloading this program
and consider having a programmer use the code from UebiMiau to
implement into Horde. The developers from Horde in answer to my
question to them regarding this, seem to think this would be easily
done by a competent programmer.
Point #9 Clarification:
I am still researching this, though again most good webhosts will
include this ability as a part of your websites control panel. I will
try to determine if there is a program that meets your requirement
that could be incorporated into the current proposal and post it here
again as a Clarification.
Thanks--mosquitohawk-ga
|
Clarification of Answer by
mosquitohawk-ga
on
09 Apr 2003 07:42 PDT
Okay, here's my clarification for point #9:
I have found sound selections of open source software that fit the
needs you have provided. All of this software features system and mail
performance and monitoring coded with either Perl or PHP in a Linux OS
environment:
AWStats - http://sourceforge.net/projects/awstats/
"Advanced Web Statistics (AWStats) is a free powerful and featureful
web server logfile analyzer that shows you all your Web (but also FTP
or Mail) statistics including visits, unique visitors, pages, hits,
hours, search engines, keywords, robots, etc..."
LogReport (Lire) - http://www.logreport.org/
"Lire is a pluggable log analyzer, supporting HTTP, email, DNS, FTP,
firewall and print services. Output generated can be txt, (X)HTML,
PDF, RTF, and DocBook. The latter four support graphics."
ModLogAn - http://jan.kneschke.de/projects/modlogan/
"ModLogAn is a modular logfile analyzer which is able to generate
reports based on 15 different inputformat from variuos sections (http,
ftp, mail, firewall, isdn, ...). As a special feature it can combine
multiple inputfiles from clustered servers."
You can find a more extensive list by visiting the SourceForge.net Log
Analysis Software Map at
http://sourceforge.net/softwaremap/trove_list.php?form_cat=245
lizardnation, I hope this clarifies my previous points and fully
answers your questions. If not, please again request clarification and
I will do my best to help you.
Best Regards -- mosquitohawk-ga
|
Request for Answer Clarification by
lizardnation-ga
on
10 Apr 2003 12:51 PDT
Hello Mosquisohawk,
Your answer covers my areas of interest quite well and I have one
little tiny query about the licensing.
GNU licenses do allow you to use code, but in the FAQ
http://www.horde.org/faq/admin/general/index.php#g11 it does state
that it can't be turned into a commercial for money product again.
Now what we've stated in the question is that we would like to provide
"...for a free and premium web mail service." and that doesn't mean
it's a commercial product, but I shall be partly providing commercial
services amungst the free by using and customizing the code.
I don't know if I'd be allowed to do that having expressed it in the
question and I don't want to be picky, but the code would be usable or
not me being allowed to use it to provide free and commercial
services, not products, with a customized version of it and as such I
felt you might find that as a requirement to qualify the answer.
If you disagree with the above, do express it, I'm not passing my
judgement here, merely a point of view which could be wrong. :-)
Thank you for a greate answer.
/Lizardnation
|
Clarification of Answer by
mosquitohawk-ga
on
10 Apr 2003 19:08 PDT
Hello again lizardnation,
You are absolutely correct. You are allowed to use the source code to
create a new product or alter the current product. You can then use
that product in a webmail-for-profit capacity without violating the
GNU license.
What you cannot do, as you so rightly stated, would be to sell your
new scripts for a profit gain. That would be the violation. If you are
using the scripts though for your own gain, that is okay, just as long
as you're not selling them.
For example, I am a webhost and I sell web hosting to my clients.
Nearly ALL of my associated software is open source and/or covered by
the GNU license. For example, I use the Horde Project, Apache
Webserver, WebHostManager, cPanel, etc. All these are open source/GNU
and I am using them to make a profit, I just couldn't make a change to
say Apache and then try to sell it for myself.
Hope that clarifies. Please remember to rate my answer.
Best regards!
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